Established in 1989, Taipei, Taiwan based G.Skill International Co. Ltd. is a manufacturer of extreme performance memory and solid-state storage. Throughout the 1990s G.Skill was relatively unknown in North American markets; however over the past 10 years they have moved from relative obscurity to become a household name among enthusiasts. While only a few years ago G.Skill was tough to find in Canada, today G.Skill memory is available at major retailers including NCIX, Newegg, and Direct Canada.

Back in October of last year, G.Skill announced the release of their ECO low voltage, 1.35V dual channel DDR3 memory for Intel Lynnfield Core i5 and Core i7 platforms. In the press release, G.Skill stated the ECO memory has more power efficiency due to the modules needed 18% less VDIMM which in turn contributes to environmental friendliness and ultimately saves G.Skill customers money. In addition, G.Skill states that lower voltages decrease a systemís operating temperature, and according to their lab tests have revealed that 1.35V memory modules produce up to 16% lower temperatures than standard 1.65V memory.

From a pricing perspective, the ECO memory is positioned around the middle of G.Skillís price spectrum at about $130 for a 4GB PC3-12800 kit. This price is above the value kits and below the top end enthusiast kits which use more expensive Elpida Hyper chips. G.Skillís ECO line shouldnít eat into their market share from their enthusiast lines such as Ripjaws, PI, and Trident since G.Skill is targeting a niche market that is interested in saving some power without sacrificing much performance.

This all sounds very intriguing so we couldnít wait to get our hands on a kit of ECO memory and run it through some rigorous tests. Well that time has come and Hardware Canucks is pleased to present a review of one of the top products from the ECO family: the DDR3 1600 4GB (2GBx2) CL7-8-7-24 1.35V kit. In this review we will see for ourselves how the ECO clocks at the low 1.35V, how it scales with voltage above that, how much speed you have to sacrifice to run low voltages and how much energy is actually saved in the end.